San Diego concealed weapons case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether law-abiding citizens need to provide law enforcement with a specific reason to be able to legally carry a concealed weapon for self-defense.

Part-time San Diegan Edward Peruta and other gun owners who were denied concealed-carry permits by the San Diego County sheriff filed a petition Thursday asking the high court to consider hearing their case, which they lost on appeal in June at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Courtesy photo

Edward Peruta

Edward Peruta (Courtesy photo)

The case has been closely watched by gun rights and gun control advocates, law enforcement and legal experts nationwide, and many have predicted that — while the Supreme Court has been unwilling to take on other concealed weapons cases — this one could be the vehicle to decide how far the Second Amendment extends beyond the home.

Courts around the country have been split on the matter.

And a Republican president coming to the White House who will be nominating a new Supreme Court justice might give the case a better chance of being heard.

“Donald Trump is the answer to a lot of Second Amendment inconsistencies,” Peruta said in an interview Thursday. “The Supreme Court can take my case or not take my case, but they cannot avoid the question.”

Long Beach-based attorney C.D. Michel said his clients hope the case will be accepted, “to confirm that the constitutional right to self-defense does not end at one’s doorstep.”

“In over 40 states, lives are being saved by good people carrying firearms,” Michel said in an email. “But in some California counties, the CCW licensing process has been corrupted by cronyism and politics — these are offensive standards that have been used to deny citizens their constitutional rights for far too long.”

The California Attorney General’s Office, which intervened in the case during the appeals process, said it is reviewing the petition.

The case stems from a 2009 lawsuit that challenged the county’s policy of requiring “good cause” to obtain a concealed-carry weapon permit, or CCW, as unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs are Peruta, Michelle Laxson, James Dodd, Leslie Buncher, Mark Cleary, and the California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation.

The Sheriff’s Department, which handles all permits in the county, requires applicants to state a specific reason they want to carry a concealed firearm, such as having a job that involves transporting large amounts of cash or needing protection from a stalker. Applicants must also pass a background check, be residents, have good moral character and complete firearms training.

Similar guidelines are followed in many of California’s big metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, Orange County and the Bay Area.

The petition for writ of certiorari argues that self-defense is a good enough reason to want to carry a gun in public, whether it is concealed or openly displayed. State law generally bans the open carry of loaded and unloaded firearms.

Peruta’s lawyers have also pointed to rural counties in California that have more lenient definitions of what constitutes good cause.

A San Diego federal judge ruled against Peruta and his fellow plaintiffs in 2010, but a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling in February 2014.

The 2-1 decision held that law-abiding citizens have the right to carry concealed weapons for self-defense.

However, an anonymous 9th Circuit judge polled fellow judges in the court asking if there was interest in rehearing the case “en banc,” or in front of a larger panel. There was interest.

But San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore had decided not to appeal the ruling. The California Attorney General’s Office intervened in his place to fight the ruling.

Eleven judges heard arguments on June 16, 2015, in San Francisco. A similar case out of Yolo County was heard at the same time.

The en banc panel took a year to reach its split 7-4 decision, reversing the three-judge panel.

“The right of a member of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment,” the court said.

Peruta asked for a rehearing in front of the en banc panel, but it was denied.

The Attorney General’s Office wrote in previous arguments that the issue has now been satisfactorily resolved: “California seeks to strike a sensible balance between recognizing and accommodating both individual rights and reasonable gun use and implementing the State’s legislative judgment that unrestricted carrying of handguns in cities, towns, or other populated areas makes the public less safe.”

As the case continues through the appeals process, the good cause requirement has remained unchanged at the Sheriff’s Department.

In 2016, the department issued 224 new permits, with a total of 1,278 active permits in the county, officials said.

A federal appeals court overturned the county's permit requirements because the court said they denied responsible citizens the right to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense.

A federal appeals court overturned the county's permit requirements because the court said they denied responsible citizens the right to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense.

There was a period, beginning in February 2014, when the 9th Circuit initially ruled on the matter, that the Sheriff’s Department accepted applications without good cause but put them on hold because the case was in limbo.

The department stopped accepting those self-defense applications in June, when the en banc panel reversed the earlier ruling. The 2,463 applications remain on hold, should the law change.

“We are going to abide by whatever the ultimate decision is,” said sheriff’s spokesman Ryan Keim.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department went beyond accepting applications during that period, and actually issued permits to people on the self-defense cause. That came to an end once the latest 9th Circuit ruling came down.